Tentacles!

The blanket continues to chug along.

There is a customer at the LYS who is famed for her ability to knit fabulous cables and other complicated patterns and yet mess up perfectly simple stockinette stitch. I'm starting to know how it feels. On one hand I have the Tina Shawl and the Bayerische sock, and on the other hand I have a GARTER STITCH blanket with one incorrect stitch (offending one, I cannot spot you right now but I know you're there), some very dubious-looking intarsia, and part of a border that had to be redone because I managed to pick up the stitches on the wrong side the first time.

On a third hand, the knitting part of it is done! Hooray!


But on a fourth hand, I still have to weave in the ends. Ick.


Since I only have two hands I should probably stop worrying about two of the points above and just feel relieved for now that I've finished the knitting part of the blanket. Perhaps one could take this concept further and create a Sloth-approved relaxation system in which the number of permitted worries are limited by appendages...

The whale obsession continues

It's Saturday afternoon, the sky is clear, and the mighty land whale is taking his hourly nap.



Oh wait, that's not a whale, that's the cat. At least, I think it's the cat. I just found a drawing of humpback whales and now I'm not so sure.

Slumber on, whatever you are...life is good.

More whales

We spent Monday afternoon wandering through the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This place is chock-full of things whale- and whaling-related, such as skeletons (blue whale, humpback whale, sperm whale, and parts of a right whale, all unfortunately accident victims, and all immense); objects made of whalebone; artwork created by whalers; tools of the trade; navigation equipment like sextants; models of whaling ships; and portraits, some garments, and furniture and household goods belonging to New Bedford residents from the whaling era.

I much prefer seeing whales alive and in the wild, but those skeletons were really interesting. I had assumed, based on pictures of sperm whales, that the skull of one would be about the size and shape of a van, but it looked more like a pterodactyl head--pointy, with a very narrow lower jaw, and giving no hint (to me, anyway) of the real size of the head.

The whalebone product collection includes several very elaborate yarn swifts. If you want to see photos of these, go to the museum website, click on “Collections Search” and “Search Object Collections”, and then click on “Browse” and type “swift” in the Browse Starting With field.

The artwork included intricate drawings done by sailors on sperm whale teeth and sailors’ valentines, which, from what I remember, involved a lot of small shells arranged in elaborate, symmetrical patterns, sometimes with a message written in yet more shells. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any photos of the valentines on the museum’s website, but there are photos of the tooth drawings--use the search function instead of browse, and type “sperm whale tooth” (no quotations) in the obj name field. Or, better yet, check out the museum if you have a chance.

In other news, here’s the status of my February UFO, with an angry cat presented for scale.



It’s the Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting, made using Knitpicks Swish Superwash yarn. I’m now halfway through side two of the border. I had some trouble with the execution of intarsia on the multi-colored blocks, but perhaps that can be interpreted as a personal touch?

And before anyone asks, it’s for someone else’s baby. We haven’t gotten to that point yet.

My band of merry yarn

Happy almost-mid-February! I hope you're staying warm and dry. Now that the various *-alongs I joined are underway, it's probably a good time to show what I'm working with.

First, there is the eponymous (?) stash for Knit From Your Stash 2007:



The photos were taken a few weeks ago, and I have to confess that since then another skein of sock yarn has joined the collection. But I will get this under control! (Maybe.)

There's more acrylic out in the front hall...alpaca on a bookshelf...dubious-looking things that I spun...and several balls that didn't appear here because they're grouped below with the UFO Resurrection Challenge projects:



Right now I'm working on the blanket at the bottom of the pile and on a sock that is sort of present (I'm using the mustard-coloured yarn in front). A photo of the sock-in-progress will follow.

Finally, there is the pedometer for Shape Up RI:


The instruction manual that came with the pedometer recommended walking about 10,000 steps each day. I had no idea how much that really was! Fortunately, some of the roads around my workplace were rebuilt recently, making walks in the area more pleasant than they used to be.

The mustard sock

The pattern is Eunny Jang's Bayerische Sock, knitted in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn (I forget which colour). The cables and ribbing do slow me down, but most of the time I don't mind...it's so neat to see the pattern form. The exception, I suppose, is on every eighth row when I have to do the large cables. Blunt needles, thin yarn, and a stubborn desire to cable without a cable needle do not combine well.

Volcano please, and hold the air

I keep forgetting to post this! It's one last blurb about Maui.

(Warning: this post is photo-heavy)

A couple of days after our sunrise excursion, we returned to Haleakala for a hike. Although Haleakala is technically a volcano, the main "crater" that we see now was created by erosion. However, it contains several cinder cones, the closest of which is accessible by foot.

We drove up in daylight this time and thus got to enjoy the sight of clouds hanging out on the fields like cows at pasture.

We also glimpsed one of my favorite signs on the trip:


We parked at the summit, walked down the Sliding Sands trail for a bit and took the branch that led to the rim of a cinder cone.


I'm not sure what I was expecting to see...maybe a fiery pit? It turned out to be more like a steep-sided bowl, but the rim was so narrow I had images of falling in and not being able to haul myself back up. We settled for peeping cautiously over the edge.
(Edit: The mist was from a cloud that rolled in as we were hiking. From what I read, Haleakala hasn't erupted since around 1790.)


We were struck by the range of colors--various shades of black, tan, yellow, brown, and red from the rocks, and green and silver from the plants.


And it was so quiet! I could hear the blood rushing through my ears, especially on the way back up when I got walloped by the thin air and had to stop every 50 feet to rest.

Here's one last view of the crater and cinder cone. You can see a bit of the Sliding Sands trail zigzagging down the far slope:

Weather predictions

Happy Groundhog Day!






Do you think Groundhog Day will ever fall victim to the holiday decoration craze? Imagine yards filled with large inflatable groundhogs and klieg lights beaming from rooftops. Neighbourhoods could award prizes for the most shadow-free yard or the most artistic lighting.

The socks in the photos are former UFOs that I finished for the UFO Challenge. They were made from Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Yarn (Purple Iris colourway) in the Knitpicks Mock Croc pattern, and I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for this challenge I would have had a hard time finishing them, because the pattern and color combo wasn't really to my taste. The groundhog liked the colours but thought the socks were too big.